Posts in Category: pc hardware

NVIDIA’s newly-released GTX 1660 Ti behaves almost like a new and improved GTX 1070. It comes with the new Turing architecture found in the RTX series, but without the ray-tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling technology; these premium features are still in the early stages of adoption, and aren’t useful or economical for a mid-tier GPU. The GTX 1660 Ti offers the advantages of new architecture without the expense and burden of superfluous features.

The GTX 1660 Ti achieves framerates at resolutions and settings roughly comparable to the GTX 1070. It doesn’t reach the level of a GTX 1080, but it’s an affordable upper-mid-range graphics card that will meet the needs of gamers and digital artists alike.

What would a versatile, powerful, balanced PC build look like with this GPU?

With the release of the highly-anticipated i9-9900k, gamers running Intel systems may still be wondering whether it’s worth upgrading to this pricey CPU, even over less-expensive options like the i7-9700k and the year-old i7-8700k. It can be tempting to default to the latest flagship model, but that may not be the best option for every builder.

Often, motherboard product pages and online forum users mention a motherboard’s VRM and how many power phases it has. Being a somewhat technical topic, VRMs aren’t an easy topic to get into. So today, we will introduce the concept of the VRM and these so-called power phases as simple and straightforward as possible, so that you can easily discern what a motherboard product page is telling you (and when it matters).

When it comes to selecting a computer case, there are a number of considerations each buyer has to weigh. The placement of USB ports, LED control options, the number of drive bays, and whether the case comes with a glass side panel are just a few elements that can factor into a buyer’s decision.

But there is one part of the case that should be of universal concern: cooling.

The much-anticipated release of nVidia’s newest generation of GPUs left many hopeful PC builders a tad disappointed. By many metrics, the cards were overpriced, with huge price hikes over the previous generation’s cards. To make matters worse, reports came out that the 2080 Ti had overheating problems, and the disappointing release of the cards’ key feature, real-time ray tracing, caused many to write off the cards altogether.

By and large, those two key hardware problems have been resolved, but the higher prices still remain. So in what scenarios would an upgrade make sense? Here we’ll look at each new high-end card and point out some cases where upgrading might be in the cards.

So, you’re building a PC; with modern components running faster (and hotter) than ever, you’ll need at least one fan. Searches reveal thousands of models bragging about their CFM or noise levels or bearing type. How do you cut through the marketing jargon? This guide for beginners should demystify computer cooling!

If you peruse sites like this, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the monitor discussion. “I’m buying a monitor, what size/resolution/refresh rate should I get?” Choosing the right monitor can be as important as (or, in some situations, even more important than) anything else in your build.

After all, your monitor is how you experience your build. The best graphics card and CPU don’t mean much if the monitor you’re using can’t show you the benefits of those parts.

Often, PC enthusiasts will speak of overclocking the way car enthusiasts discuss high-performance engines, with megahertz and voltage taking the place of horsepower and torque. Overclocking is often a relatively simple way to squeeze out extra performance from computer components; however, problems sometimes do arise. Luckily, most problems faced with overclocking are easily fixed with some basic troubleshooting techniques.

For our purposes, we’ll look at issues affecting the components that are overclocked the most: the CPU and GPU.